Good points everyone. But it all comes down to one thing -- you can either buy zen with real money or trade dilithium for it. Since Cryptic wants more purchases of zen with money, they will continue to reduce the means to earn dilithium. It is unfortunate that they chose to reduce dilithium by removing rewards instead of enticing players to buy new gear with it. The phoenix box is over due for new ships and gear and there are other things that players would willingly spend dilithium on (as mentioned by other posters), if offered. Instead, it is less effort/more profitable to remove something. One thing they should consider is the carrot and the stick. How much will players put up with before they go play something else?
Again, Cryptic doesn't care how much Zen is traded in the Dil exchange because there is NO FREE ZEN.
No matter how (via LTS or direct RMT) all the Zen being moved in STO has been paid for with real money by someone <--- And that is the only bottom line that Cryptic cares about as that is there entire cash flow for STO development and profit. No one is 'getting a free ride' here as someone ponied up real money at some point for the Zen.
having a HEALTHY Dilithium Exchange (Read enough interesting things to by with refined Dilithium would ONLY HELP Zen sales as new players who don't want to wait might actually trade their Zen for Dilithium (and might even BUY Zen to do it.)
There ARE players who still trade Zen for Dil OR the exchange would be at an absolute standstill with zero transactions <--- And that's not the case. It may take 1 to 2 weeks, but you can still trade Dil <--> Zen; just not 'instantly on demand' anymore because there's way more demand for Zen than Dill atm.
But no, overall, the imbalance doesn't help their bottom line because the situation frustrates and drives away some players - and the less players you have the 'deader' the game, which again is not a optimal situation.
Yes, only about 10% ever actually spend any real money, but they do so because the other 90% make the game more active. When those 90% start to leave due to frustration and don't come back, it may make some of those who do spend money start to spend less or move on to other games they see as more active/fun.
So, yeah, it's a situation that Cryptic should take steps to correct/balance out, because the current situation only hurts STOs prospects and profits in the long run.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Good points everyone. But it all comes down to one thing -- you can either buy zen with real money or trade dilithium for it. Since Cryptic wants more purchases of zen with money, they will continue to reduce the means to earn dilithium. It is unfortunate that they chose to reduce dilithium by removing rewards instead of enticing players to buy new gear with it. The phoenix box is over due for new ships and gear and there are other things that players would willingly spend dilithium on (as mentioned by other posters), if offered. Instead, it is less effort/more profitable to remove something. One thing they should consider is the carrot and the stick. How much will players put up with before they go play something else?
Again, Cryptic doesn't care how much Zen is traded in the Dil exchange because there is NO FREE ZEN.
No matter how (via LTS or direct RMT) all the Zen being moved in STO has been paid for with real money by someone <--- And that is the only bottom line that Cryptic cares about as that is there entire cash flow for STO development and profit. No one is 'getting a free ride' here as someone ponied up real money at some point for the Zen.
having a HEALTHY Dilithium Exchange (Read enough interesting things to by with refined Dilithium would ONLY HELP Zen sales as new players who don't want to wait might actually trade their Zen for Dilithium (and might even BUY Zen to do it.)
There ARE players who still trade Zen for Dil OR the exchange would be at an absolute standstill with zero transactions <--- And that's not the case. It may take 1 to 2 weeks, but you can still trade Dil <--> Zen; just not 'instantly on demand' anymore because there's way more demand for Zen than Dill atm.
But no, overall, the imbalance doesn't help their bottom line because the situation frustrates and drives away some players - and the less players you have the 'deader' the game, which again is not a optimal situation.
Yes, only about 10% ever actually spend any real money, but they do so because the other 90% make the game more active. When those 90% start to leave due to frustration and don't come back, it may make some of those who do spend money start to spend less or move on to other games they see as more active/fun.
So, yeah, it's a situation that Cryptic should take steps to correct/balance out, because the current situation only hurts STOs prospects and profits in the long run.
Exactly.
It boggles the mind how many people still think their Zen "bought" with dill doesn't make Cryptic money. Now that the exchange has ground out we can figure out how much $ actually flows into Cryptic to buy purple rocks. And its not nothing 3-5 thousand dollars every single day. Cryptic makes that daily selling Zen to players that are trading it to players for rocks.
Cryptic are the only ones that know all the numbers... and how much they where making on the market before it ground out. My suspicion is STO is like every other video game with micro transactions.... and that 3-5k a day is probably been more or less unchanged for YEARS. There are only so many players that will pay to buy rocks from other players... rather then grind themselves.
With that in mind... all the sinks we can dream up have a cap on how "useful" they can be.
At some point we have to accept that NOT every free player can expect to grind in game currency and buy every single $200 ship pack. I know that sucks... but some other player has to pay for your zen. There is a ceiling on that unless cryptic is going to dig up more whales somewhere. Some players suggest that if they add more sinks people that don't buy purple rocks now will all of a sudden turn into whales that wallet rather then grind.
Too that I say HAhaHA. If your a full F2P player or a Partial (spend 20-30 bucks here and there type) think that sounds reasonable... ask yourself does it sound reasonable for others or for yourself. If they add a bunch more sinks that you can't really avoid are you going to become a Rock buyer ? ? ?
If your answer is no they won't turn me into a buyer... well why would you think others feel any differently.
Anyway point is the market is very good... 5k dollars a day in Zen being sold to other players is really good. The issue has been for a long time how easy it is to grind million of dill a week. The easiest way to do that has been T5 rewards... if that doesn't work... Hey next up is probably admiralty. They might not have to go that far though... at least with admiralty running it on multiple toons is time consuming, and the only people with 300 cards or at least the best cards are in general people who have spent money.
Again, Cryptic doesn't care how much Zen is traded in the Dil exchange because there is NO FREE ZEN.
No matter how (via LTS or direct RMT) all the Zen being moved in STO has been paid for with real money by someone <--- And that is the only bottom line that Cryptic cares about as that is there entire cash flow for STO development and profit. No one is 'getting a free ride' here as someone ponied up real money at some point for the Zen.
Thats not accurate. For two reasons:
They are nerfing the dilithium gain from reputations to reduce the amount that can be traded in the dilithium exchange. This change would make less sense than it already does if they didnt care about the exchange.
You can gather huge amounts of zen and not spend real currency. So in that case its free zen.
If I couldnt convert dilithium to zen I would have to buy zen. Much more people would have to spend real currency and the dilithium exchange would seize to exist and profits would go up.
The issue has been for a long time how easy it is to grind million of dill a week. The easiest way to do that has been T5 rewards... if that doesn't work... Hey next up is probably admiralty.
How many people have that many toons and can grind enough marks to actually do that? Probably very few of the total population. And most of those already spend lots of money on the game to not really need this huge time sink.
The time requirement for that is insane and kinda unrealistic to justify this change here. And admiralty is very unreliable when it comes to to dil rewards. Not to mention you need a fleet of ships first and log in three times a day to hopefully finish sufficient dilithium rewarding missions to fill the daily cap.
Again, Cryptic doesn't care how much Zen is traded in the Dil exchange because there is NO FREE ZEN.
No matter how (via LTS or direct RMT) all the Zen being moved in STO has been paid for with real money by someone <--- And that is the only bottom line that Cryptic cares about as that is there entire cash flow for STO development and profit. No one is 'getting a free ride' here as someone ponied up real money at some point for the Zen.
Thats not accurate. For two reasons:
They are nerfing the dilithium gain from reputations to reduce the amount that can be traded in the dilithium exchange. This change would make less sense than it already does if they didnt care about the exchange.
You can gather huge amounts of zen and not spend real currency. So in that case its free zen.
If I couldnt convert dilithium to zen I would have to buy zen. Much more people would have to spend real currency and the dilithium exchange would seize to exist and profits would go up.
The issue has been for a long time how easy it is to grind million of dill a week. The easiest way to do that has been T5 rewards... if that doesn't work... Hey next up is probably admiralty.
How many people have that many toons and can grind enough marks to actually do that? Probably very few of the total population. And most of those already spend lots of money on the game to not really need this huge time sink.
The time requirement for that is insane and kinda unrealistic to justify this change here. And admiralty is very unreliable when it comes to to dil rewards. Not to mention you need a fleet of ships first and log in three times a day to hopefully finish sufficient dilithium rewarding missions to fill the daily cap.
Easy, my undead butt.
OK the point is YOU didn't pay for the Zen... but someone did. Who ever it was that bought the Purple rocks for you paid for that zen. Even if they got in a stipend they paid for a life time to get that. Zen only enters the game when its paid for >.< Right now 3-5 thousand dollars a day from PLAYERES is sold on the dill ex to players such as yourself.
As far as how many people have lots of toons... the answer is a ton. Think about it this way. 190,000,000 dill is bought by players with real money every day. (based on my last sale which was 10 days in march Exchange was at 3.8 million zen when I placed the order). Lets put that in perspective of toons.... 23,750 toons refine limit (daily). According to steam STOs peek players last month was 2,151... of course not everyone uses steam but lets say we double that number to 4302. That would mean EVERY single person playing STO in march was selling every single day 5 toons refine limit every single day.
The numbers don't lie... the vast majority of players in STO are farming boat loads of Dill. The toon limit is 50... I mean either this game has thousands of people selling toon from 10-20 farm toons. OR its got 500 or so hardcores that are selling 50 toons every single day. lol
The T5 rewards where the easiest way to farm massive numbers of toons... cause as we have went over a few times. Done right it was no more then 20 min a day to run massive farms of toons destined to be deleted and rerolled.
The Dilithium Ore given as part of the mission rewards associated with reaching Tier 5 in any Reputation have been replaced with Reputation Dilithium Vouchers. This reward has always been intended to be used to purchase Reputation Equipment, which may still be done using these Vouchers, which also do not require Refinement before use.
This change will take effect tomorrow on PC, and next Tuesday on Console.
So what happens when I reach Tier 5 of a Reputation now?
You will receive the same amount of dilithium as you had received in the past, but now in the form of Reputation Dilithium Vouchers. These vouchers can be spent to purchase Reputation Equipment.
Can I use these Reputation Dilithium Vouchers on any Reputation?
Yes. Vouchers unlocked from reaching Tier 5 on any Reputation can be used to purchase Reputation Equipment from any Reputation.
Why is this change being made?
As mentioned above, this Dilithium was always meant to be used to obtain Reputation Equipment. At the time, the designers believed players would use it exclusively for that, which may have been shortsighted. Switching this may have an effect on the Dilithium Economy. It's one of the many changes we're hoping to enact over the coming months.
Can you tell us about any of the other changes?
Not at this time. The other changes are either still in the testing phase or the design phase, and not yet ready for public consumption.
Another Dil nerf, guess there is no point in making new characters anymore for old time players. If you wanna do this garbage, you make Rep Dil Vouchers Account bound.
The Dilithium Ore given as part of the mission rewards associated with reaching Tier 5 in any Reputation have been replaced with Reputation Dilithium Vouchers. This reward has always been intended to be used to purchase Reputation Equipment, which may still be done using these Vouchers, which also do not require Refinement before use.
This change will take effect tomorrow on PC, and next Tuesday on Console.
So what happens when I reach Tier 5 of a Reputation now?
You will receive the same amount of dilithium as you had received in the past, but now in the form of Reputation Dilithium Vouchers. These vouchers can be spent to purchase Reputation Equipment.
Can I use these Reputation Dilithium Vouchers on any Reputation?
Yes. Vouchers unlocked from reaching Tier 5 on any Reputation can be used to purchase Reputation Equipment from any Reputation.
Why is this change being made?
As mentioned above, this Dilithium was always meant to be used to obtain Reputation Equipment. At the time, the designers believed players would use it exclusively for that, which may have been shortsighted. Switching this may have an effect on the Dilithium Economy. It's one of the many changes we're hoping to enact over the coming months.
Can you tell us about any of the other changes?
Not at this time. The other changes are either still in the testing phase or the design phase, and not yet ready for public consumption.
Another Dil nerf, guess there is no point in making new characters anymore for old time players. If you wanna do this garbage, you make Rep Dil Vouchers Account bound.
It's still 'faster' than you'd get dilithium ore by farming random TFOs. Just, not by much (approx ~10% more marks for the time spent), and far less entertaining. It also comes with a decent amount of fleet vouchers (fleet projects only) and roughly 2000 fleet marks. So there's some value to it still, just not the obscene orders of magnitude better that it used to be. Which, honestly, is fine, imo. As long as it's soon followed by addressing the *SUPPLY* demand (sigh -- I goobered it) side of dilithium, too...but I won't hold my breath on that.
Ok here's the main problem, And old timer like me used to love to make agent characters "goal orientated for the agent" as a side thing to do and getting not just admiralty and rep's done you could get up to 750k dil that way in a month or 2. With 2 Admiralty changes to the dil already "cap and vouchers, and now dil rep vouchers, this creates as others mentioned a more annoying problem trying to lvl multiple toons at once, especially with agents, and some one else mentioned that some rep items are bought with dil only, so how are the BS vouchers going to accommodate that?
You guys will literally do everything short of just giving us things to spend it on, won't you? I know it's not easy to come up with something desirable enough to be a big sink without punishing people who don't have mountains of dil to spend, but it's certainly not impossible, and it would be much healthier than these half-afted stopgaps that just remove notable incentives to engage with the systems.
The dil from reps isn't the biggest or nicest reward, but it's easily the most tangible. This way you can't even use it to get nice hangar pets or invest it into fleets. It's just dead weight. Is the concept of a "general dil voucher" really that complicated? If you want to lock the dil to the character that farmed it, at the very least let them use it wherever they like even if they can't trade it or move it around.
I'm not a "slap in the face" guy but it's hard to see this as anything but anti-player.
The Dilithium Ore given as part of the mission rewards associated with reaching Tier 5 in any Reputation have been replaced with Reputation Dilithium Vouchers. This reward has always been intended to be used to purchase Reputation Equipment, which may still be done using these Vouchers, which also do not require Refinement before use.
This change will take effect tomorrow on PC, and next Tuesday on Console.
So what happens when I reach Tier 5 of a Reputation now?
You will receive the same amount of dilithium as you had received in the past, but now in the form of Reputation Dilithium Vouchers. These vouchers can be spent to purchase Reputation Equipment.
Can I use these Reputation Dilithium Vouchers on any Reputation?
Yes. Vouchers unlocked from reaching Tier 5 on any Reputation can be used to purchase Reputation Equipment from any Reputation.
Why is this change being made?
As mentioned above, this Dilithium was always meant to be used to obtain Reputation Equipment. At the time, the designers believed players would use it exclusively for that, which may have been shortsighted. Switching this may have an effect on the Dilithium Economy. It's one of the many changes we're hoping to enact over the coming months.
Can you tell us about any of the other changes?
Not at this time. The other changes are either still in the testing phase or the design phase, and not yet ready for public consumption.
Another Dil nerf, guess there is no point in making new characters anymore for old time players. If you wanna do this garbage, you make Rep Dil Vouchers Account bound.
It's still 'faster' than you'd get dilithium ore by farming random TFOs. Just, not by much (approx ~10% more marks for the time spent), and far less entertaining. It also comes with a decent amount of fleet vouchers (fleet projects only) and roughly 2000 fleet marks. So there's some value to it still, just not the obscene orders of magnitude better that it used to be. Which, honestly, is fine, imo. As long as it's soon followed by addressing the *SUPPLY* demand (sigh -- I goobered it) side of dilithium, too...but I won't hold my breath on that.
Ok here's the main problem, And old timer like me used to love to make agent characters "goal orientated for the agent" as a side thing to do and getting not just admiralty and rep's done you could get up to 750k dil that way in a month or 2. With 2 Admiralty changes to the dil already "cap and vouchers, and now dil rep vouchers, this creates as others mentioned a more annoying problem trying to lvl multiple toons at once, especially with agents, and some one else mentioned that some rep items are bought with dil only, so how are the BS vouchers going to accommodate that?
As I said, it's not perfect, and I pointed out some obvious pitfalls (an abundance of vouchers without enough to spend them on), along with at least suggesting some modest changes that would help alleviate them to some extent (rep store universal upgrades), as well as some changes others have added here as well, one of which was to make rep store items use vouchers, too.
Really rep store universal upgrades ? I thought we where trying to dream up "sinks"... not free upgrades.
Cryptic really should have converted the T5 Dill to vouchers and then hit /4.... so no one would complain about having too much.
Yeah, it's not even funny anymore. From 3.2 to 5.2 in what? Two weeks after the t5 rep dil nerf? We all knew the change of this "fix" would'nt be visible for a while, but this is just plain ridiculous - seems like it won't fix a damn thing. If they want to continue on the nerf path, the only thing that would help in this moment is just slash ALL dilithium rewards in half or even to 10% of previus values. I can't even imagine a "miracle" sink, that would work in the current state of things.
I have never traded dilithum for Zen as it was too valuable to use in fleet projects to advance the fleets to tier 5. Grinding dilithium takes time a effort that I don't have. All this change is going to do is hurt the new players and Fleet development. I agree with others on this chat that this will hurt STO badly.
Yeah, it's not even funny anymore. From 3.2 to 5.2 in what? Two weeks after the t5 rep dil nerf? We all knew the change of this "fix" would'nt be visible for a while, but this is just plain ridiculous - seems like it won't fix a damn thing. If they want to continue on the nerf path, the only thing that would help in this moment is just slash ALL dilithium rewards in half or even to 10% of previus values. I can't even imagine a "miracle" sink, that would work in the current state of things.
The fix will have an effect. Three things just happened. One Cryptic just ran the best Dill farm event in the game... admiralty week. Two they woke some hardcore farmers up to the fact that they are finally serious about cleaning things up so no one wanted to miss any of this admiralty event. Three they announced another legendary pack.
The T5 change if it has an effect won't kick in for awhile yet. In a week or two the event weeks surge should clear. I mean if it doesn't drop from 5 million in the next few weeks then we may be up a creek. lol
This change doesn't matter to me or most other long time players sitting on piles of millions of dilithium, because we've had our characters long past T5 in reps forever. All this change does is really hurt new players who are just getting into the game and want to earn dil and spend it on something. Hurting them in the long runs just stops them from enjoying the game and thus spending more money on it in the future.
The solution to this whole thing is to give us something to spend dilithium on - a debate that has been full of bad ideas that would never be done, like offering keys for dil for example.
What *should* be done though, is all of the previous event gear consoles/ships etc should be in the Phoenix boxes, almost as soon as the event is over. It's fine to leave them in the Mudd's store too. I would spend tons of dilithium on phoenix boxes trying to get ships and consoles that I missed when I took some time off, and so would many other players.
Ex. I missed the Elachi Frigate event. I can buy that ship in Mudd's account wide, or I can earn it with dilithium for a single character. Win/Win scenario there. Currently, that ship is only available in Mudd's, not Phoenix, but it should be both.
Another Ex. the Bajoran Interceptor is a popular ship a lot of newer players missed. Add it to Mudd's, why should it only be in Phoenix? Then they could choose to buy it for their whole account, or if they only want it on one character, they can grind dilithium->phoenix for it.
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Really, though, why stop at nerfing Reputation Dil? Why just throw new characters under the bus? Let's go after the veterans, too. Those Lifers have it pretty easy, don't they? Maybe, instead of giving them the regular 500 Zen stipend each month that they can just convert to dilithium at will, you instead give them a 500 Zen "Voucher" that can only be spent in the C Store? Or, better yet, only on items in Mudd's Market?
And players gain reputation marks far too quickly. Instead of bonus marks for TFOs, give them Mark "Vouchers" that can only be used to buy vanity shields and those one-a-day reputation token projects. I'm sure there are other ways that you can bring "Vouchers" into the game to discourage players from, well, playing the game.
And if that doesn't work, start time gating more things. Make TFOs 20 hour cooldowns to stop farming. Episodes, too, so players can't just play at their own pace. Soon enough, there won't be anyone clogging up the Dil Exchange anymore.
Seems people have spoken, about how they feel about the nerf-instead-of-sink approach. Dil exchange went from 3.2 to 6.2 million backlog in two weeks. Contrary to what some people on the forum would have you believe - it's not because of the admirality bonus week (and even if it was - most out of it got the "paying" customers, with their fleets of c-store/more premium ships), but because the NERFS DON'T WORK. Either we get something attractive for our dil, or we can forget about the whole exchange thing - atm you WILL wait 20 days minimum for your order to go trough and it will get worse and worse. And as someone, who's also playing the EC exchange as well (dealing in high-value items), i CAN tell you that the whales are leaving the ocean. You better do something to stop their migration, or the small fish will follow...
or change the Dil refine per toon to per account and raise the cap a bit.
Heavily against this type of change. I'm not a veteran that knows the exploits to gather unrefined dilithium. I only refine the little dilithium my captains gain from playing TFOs after exchanging reputation marks for unrefined dilithium. Any cap should be forced on veterans with an overabundance of refined dilithium. Anyone with over 5 million dilithium would be a better method.
or change the Dil refine per toon to per account and raise the cap a bit.
Heavily against this type of change. I'm not a veteran that knows the exploits to gather unrefined dilithium. I only refine the little dilithium my captains gain from playing TFOs after exchanging reputation marks for unrefined dilithium. Any cap should be forced on veterans with an overabundance of refined dilithium. Anyone with over 5 million dilithium would be a better method.
They probably won't, because that would make too much sense. They'd rather punish the peasantry and the "little guy" before they go after the big barons.
Honestly, the best solution in this case would have been to offer a choice, like some of the Recruit and other rewards do. Give players the choice between fleet vouchers or rep vouchers. That would 'solve' the issue of people farming the Dil for the exchange, and give players a useful way to use the Dil.
Many of the reps have absolutely worthless gear at this point, beyond some of the cosmetics. Fleet gear, on the other hand, still has a fair number of useful items. To me, the Fleddits are worth far more than the rep only Dil. There's not a lot I want out of the rep gear, but there are still quite a few things I need from the Fleet. There's also the added bonus of helping the Fleet/Armada level up their holdings faster.
It still would have drawn a fair amount of criticism (lets face it, nothing the Devs can do will be 'right', because gamers are gamers and love to flame when given the chance to do so) but I think it would have been a far more elegant solution than popping this on folks right before the change, with absolutely no chance to discuss it first.
FYI: fleet vouchers are only useable of fleet projects. They cannot be used to buy fleet gear.
Which is why I mentioned that the Fleddits (Fleet Credits) are more valuable to me than the rep gear. Dump the dilithium into the projects, get credits, spend them on gear.
Comments
Again, Cryptic doesn't care how much Zen is traded in the Dil exchange because there is NO FREE ZEN.
No matter how (via LTS or direct RMT) all the Zen being moved in STO has been paid for with real money by someone <--- And that is the only bottom line that Cryptic cares about as that is there entire cash flow for STO development and profit. No one is 'getting a free ride' here as someone ponied up real money at some point for the Zen.
having a HEALTHY Dilithium Exchange (Read enough interesting things to by with refined Dilithium would ONLY HELP Zen sales as new players who don't want to wait might actually trade their Zen for Dilithium (and might even BUY Zen to do it.)
There ARE players who still trade Zen for Dil OR the exchange would be at an absolute standstill with zero transactions <--- And that's not the case. It may take 1 to 2 weeks, but you can still trade Dil <--> Zen; just not 'instantly on demand' anymore because there's way more demand for Zen than Dill atm.
But no, overall, the imbalance doesn't help their bottom line because the situation frustrates and drives away some players - and the less players you have the 'deader' the game, which again is not a optimal situation.
Yes, only about 10% ever actually spend any real money, but they do so because the other 90% make the game more active. When those 90% start to leave due to frustration and don't come back, it may make some of those who do spend money start to spend less or move on to other games they see as more active/fun.
So, yeah, it's a situation that Cryptic should take steps to correct/balance out, because the current situation only hurts STOs prospects and profits in the long run.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Exactly.
It boggles the mind how many people still think their Zen "bought" with dill doesn't make Cryptic money. Now that the exchange has ground out we can figure out how much $ actually flows into Cryptic to buy purple rocks. And its not nothing 3-5 thousand dollars every single day. Cryptic makes that daily selling Zen to players that are trading it to players for rocks.
Cryptic are the only ones that know all the numbers... and how much they where making on the market before it ground out. My suspicion is STO is like every other video game with micro transactions.... and that 3-5k a day is probably been more or less unchanged for YEARS. There are only so many players that will pay to buy rocks from other players... rather then grind themselves.
With that in mind... all the sinks we can dream up have a cap on how "useful" they can be.
At some point we have to accept that NOT every free player can expect to grind in game currency and buy every single $200 ship pack. I know that sucks... but some other player has to pay for your zen. There is a ceiling on that unless cryptic is going to dig up more whales somewhere. Some players suggest that if they add more sinks people that don't buy purple rocks now will all of a sudden turn into whales that wallet rather then grind.
Too that I say HAhaHA. If your a full F2P player or a Partial (spend 20-30 bucks here and there type) think that sounds reasonable... ask yourself does it sound reasonable for others or for yourself. If they add a bunch more sinks that you can't really avoid are you going to become a Rock buyer ? ? ?
If your answer is no they won't turn me into a buyer... well why would you think others feel any differently.
Anyway point is the market is very good... 5k dollars a day in Zen being sold to other players is really good. The issue has been for a long time how easy it is to grind million of dill a week. The easiest way to do that has been T5 rewards... if that doesn't work... Hey next up is probably admiralty. They might not have to go that far though... at least with admiralty running it on multiple toons is time consuming, and the only people with 300 cards or at least the best cards are in general people who have spent money.
They are nerfing the dilithium gain from reputations to reduce the amount that can be traded in the dilithium exchange. This change would make less sense than it already does if they didnt care about the exchange.
You can gather huge amounts of zen and not spend real currency. So in that case its free zen.
If I couldnt convert dilithium to zen I would have to buy zen. Much more people would have to spend real currency and the dilithium exchange would seize to exist and profits would go up.
How many people have that many toons and can grind enough marks to actually do that? Probably very few of the total population. And most of those already spend lots of money on the game to not really need this huge time sink.
The time requirement for that is insane and kinda unrealistic to justify this change here. And admiralty is very unreliable when it comes to to dil rewards. Not to mention you need a fleet of ships first and log in three times a day to hopefully finish sufficient dilithium rewarding missions to fill the daily cap.
Easy, my undead butt.
OK the point is YOU didn't pay for the Zen... but someone did. Who ever it was that bought the Purple rocks for you paid for that zen. Even if they got in a stipend they paid for a life time to get that. Zen only enters the game when its paid for >.< Right now 3-5 thousand dollars a day from PLAYERES is sold on the dill ex to players such as yourself.
As far as how many people have lots of toons... the answer is a ton. Think about it this way. 190,000,000 dill is bought by players with real money every day. (based on my last sale which was 10 days in march Exchange was at 3.8 million zen when I placed the order). Lets put that in perspective of toons.... 23,750 toons refine limit (daily). According to steam STOs peek players last month was 2,151... of course not everyone uses steam but lets say we double that number to 4302. That would mean EVERY single person playing STO in march was selling every single day 5 toons refine limit every single day.
The numbers don't lie... the vast majority of players in STO are farming boat loads of Dill. The toon limit is 50... I mean either this game has thousands of people selling toon from 10-20 farm toons. OR its got 500 or so hardcores that are selling 50 toons every single day. lol
The T5 rewards where the easiest way to farm massive numbers of toons... cause as we have went over a few times. Done right it was no more then 20 min a day to run massive farms of toons destined to be deleted and rerolled.
Another Dil nerf, guess there is no point in making new characters anymore for old time players. If you wanna do this garbage, you make Rep Dil Vouchers Account bound.
Ok here's the main problem, And old timer like me used to love to make agent characters "goal orientated for the agent" as a side thing to do and getting not just admiralty and rep's done you could get up to 750k dil that way in a month or 2. With 2 Admiralty changes to the dil already "cap and vouchers, and now dil rep vouchers, this creates as others mentioned a more annoying problem trying to lvl multiple toons at once, especially with agents, and some one else mentioned that some rep items are bought with dil only, so how are the BS vouchers going to accommodate that?
You guys will literally do everything short of just giving us things to spend it on, won't you? I know it's not easy to come up with something desirable enough to be a big sink without punishing people who don't have mountains of dil to spend, but it's certainly not impossible, and it would be much healthier than these half-afted stopgaps that just remove notable incentives to engage with the systems.
The dil from reps isn't the biggest or nicest reward, but it's easily the most tangible. This way you can't even use it to get nice hangar pets or invest it into fleets. It's just dead weight. Is the concept of a "general dil voucher" really that complicated? If you want to lock the dil to the character that farmed it, at the very least let them use it wherever they like even if they can't trade it or move it around.
I'm not a "slap in the face" guy but it's hard to see this as anything but anti-player.
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Really rep store universal upgrades ? I thought we where trying to dream up "sinks"... not free upgrades.
Cryptic really should have converted the T5 Dill to vouchers and then hit /4.... so no one would complain about having too much.
It's great for those of us selling ZEN. :P
The fix will have an effect. Three things just happened. One Cryptic just ran the best Dill farm event in the game... admiralty week. Two they woke some hardcore farmers up to the fact that they are finally serious about cleaning things up so no one wanted to miss any of this admiralty event. Three they announced another legendary pack.
The T5 change if it has an effect won't kick in for awhile yet. In a week or two the event weeks surge should clear. I mean if it doesn't drop from 5 million in the next few weeks then we may be up a creek. lol
The solution to this whole thing is to give us something to spend dilithium on - a debate that has been full of bad ideas that would never be done, like offering keys for dil for example.
What *should* be done though, is all of the previous event gear consoles/ships etc should be in the Phoenix boxes, almost as soon as the event is over. It's fine to leave them in the Mudd's store too. I would spend tons of dilithium on phoenix boxes trying to get ships and consoles that I missed when I took some time off, and so would many other players.
Ex. I missed the Elachi Frigate event. I can buy that ship in Mudd's account wide, or I can earn it with dilithium for a single character. Win/Win scenario there. Currently, that ship is only available in Mudd's, not Phoenix, but it should be both.
Another Ex. the Bajoran Interceptor is a popular ship a lot of newer players missed. Add it to Mudd's, why should it only be in Phoenix? Then they could choose to buy it for their whole account, or if they only want it on one character, they can grind dilithium->phoenix for it.
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And players gain reputation marks far too quickly. Instead of bonus marks for TFOs, give them Mark "Vouchers" that can only be used to buy vanity shields and those one-a-day reputation token projects. I'm sure there are other ways that you can bring "Vouchers" into the game to discourage players from, well, playing the game.
And if that doesn't work, start time gating more things. Make TFOs 20 hour cooldowns to stop farming. Episodes, too, so players can't just play at their own pace. Soon enough, there won't be anyone clogging up the Dil Exchange anymore.
In the reputation pane. There is a button to open the store for each faction reputation.
Heavily against this type of change. I'm not a veteran that knows the exploits to gather unrefined dilithium. I only refine the little dilithium my captains gain from playing TFOs after exchanging reputation marks for unrefined dilithium. Any cap should be forced on veterans with an overabundance of refined dilithium. Anyone with over 5 million dilithium would be a better method.
They probably won't, because that would make too much sense. They'd rather punish the peasantry and the "little guy" before they go after the big barons.
Many of the reps have absolutely worthless gear at this point, beyond some of the cosmetics. Fleet gear, on the other hand, still has a fair number of useful items. To me, the Fleddits are worth far more than the rep only Dil. There's not a lot I want out of the rep gear, but there are still quite a few things I need from the Fleet. There's also the added bonus of helping the Fleet/Armada level up their holdings faster.
It still would have drawn a fair amount of criticism (lets face it, nothing the Devs can do will be 'right', because gamers are gamers and love to flame when given the chance to do so) but I think it would have been a far more elegant solution than popping this on folks right before the change, with absolutely no chance to discuss it first.
Which is why I mentioned that the Fleddits (Fleet Credits) are more valuable to me than the rep gear. Dump the dilithium into the projects, get credits, spend them on gear.